Under pressure

I'm feeling under a big of blog pressure at the moment (and let's be honest, given I haven't worked since September last year there isn't a whole lot of other pressure in my life).

1. Pressure to write more posts - it has been three weeks since I last posted.

2. Neglecting to write about certain things I have done in my travels.

In particular, my sister has noted (with apparent unhappiness) that I failed to blog about a recent trip to Darwin to visit her.

The five days I had in Darwin at the beginning of April were fantastic.  I lounged around in the sun in the beautiful pool at her house, visited one of the nearby National Parks, and ate and drank well but the highlight was definitely going mud-crabbing.  Mud-crabbing involves setting pots (like crayfish pots for the Kiwis) on a turning tide in the crocodile infested mangrove swamps.

I can personally attest to the crocodile 'infestedness' of the water there as we actually witnessed a crocodile swimming beside one of the pots we had laid.  The pots have to carefully collected with a boat hook, not only because of the crocodile threat, but also because of the potential for deadly box jellyfish in the water there.  (While Darwin is nice, there are definitely too many threatening species for me to want to live there).  While it was touch and go as to whether we would catch any crabs, we did end up with a couple, along with a bonus fish in one of the pots.  I think mud-crabs must be like the equivalent of paua in New Zealand - everyone has a theory on how to cook them.  It was hilarious witnessing the said crabs being cooked on the barbecue later that evening.  Literally every person who came out to investigate what was in the pot cooking, imparted their words of wisdom on how to cook the crabs.  The end result was delicious!

Anyway I never got around to posting about this at the time, and, as the saying goes, better late than never.

Relaying this now reiterates the amazing range of experiences I have had in the last couple of years of traveling, especially since I am now writing this from a country home in the south west of France.  

I'll try to update again soon about my more recent adventures in Turkey and France.